02 October 2007 2:31 PM

The American Way

Read Peter Hitchens only in The Mail on Sunday

As I walked from Blackpool station to my hotel through the glum back streets, I saw a group of children actually playing baseball - with a proper bat and a catcher's mitt. Once, they wouldn't have known what baseball was, and would have played cricket or football. Now, baseball equipment can be bought here, and children know the rules and terminology, as their parents would never have done.

And in the Midland towns I passed through on the way up to Blackpool, I saw an increasing number of huge, shiny stadiums, designed for football but built in the American style, and of out-of-town shopping and entertainment centres, copied direct from the American suburbs. In many ways, provincial Britain is turning into a version of the USA. I think this is because huge numbers of people envy and desire what they imagine to be the American way of life, and anyone who offers them American-style facilities is pretty likely to make a profit.

Who would have thought that Britain would end up solving its class problem by becoming a slightly shabby version of the USA? Yet it seems to me that many of the British working classes (as they once were, though the term doesn't seem to apply as it once did) have embraced all things American with an extraordinary passion, and that there must be some reason for this apart from the fact that they see a certain version of America on TV and in the movies almost all the time, or have taken and enjoyed holidays in Florida.

I have always liked America myself, especially at dusk when the lights start to glow and glitter and the hideous, banal architecture of the suburbs fades into the night. In my childhood, the USA was a sort of remote dreamland, immensely rich, skyscrapers, canyons, cowboys and Indians. The reality, though different from the dream, was still pretty enviable if you were used to the colourless narrowness of post-war Britain.

The first time I went there, in 1977 (when British visitors were so rare that I was constantly asked if I were an Australian, a very funny experience for anyone with my plummy Home Counties tones), I couldn't sleep properly for a month afterwards because I longed to be back there. And I think there is much that is good in American society, which we ought to emulate. But as it happens I've never bought the idea that it is classless. Anything but. The difference is that America's class system is differently graded from ours, and depends much more on simple money, and much less on language and accent.

For instance, the USA seems to lack that very important British stratum, the lower upper middle class, the sort of people who keep Waitrose and Marks and Spencer in business. There's no American equivalent of M&S, with J.C.Penney being a little less opulent and the big fancy stores being a lot more upmarket. In the same way, private secondary education in the USA, which is a real definer of class in Britain, is only for the super-rich in the USA. Everyone else uses the local High School (though these can vary enormously depending on the district, just like our comprehensives) and saves their money to pay college fees. Places at these are regulated by a sort of 18-plus, the supposedly un-deceivable SATS, very unlike our A-levels.

By the time Americans get to college, they are pretty much who they are always going to be, and the egalitarian High School machine has done the job it was meant to do. There are two exceptions to this. The children of plutocrats, who can afford either the majestic New England prep schools or grand day establishments like Sidwell Friends in Washington DC, where Chelsea Clinton went; or the children of home schooling parents, mainly but not entirely Protestant Christians, who have staged an extraordinary mass revolt against the secular state schools and who win many of the best scholarships at Ivy League universities.

It looks as if we are headed the same way here. The Marks and Spencer classes are quietly dwindling, private schooling is moving out of reach of all but the super-rich, middle-class accents are becoming an active disadvantage and money (and celebrity) are much more significant than the old subtle signs of status. And home schooling is quietly growing too.

And so, with our games of street baseball, our cricket trying to look like baseball to survive, our politicians running ,rather than standing for election, our coffee -consumers asking "can I get?" instead of "Please may I have?” and our Presidential politics, we quietly become America without in fact being American. Is this is a good thing? In some ways. The pettiness of class created much stupid misery (see Nevil Shute's charming wartime novel 'Landfall' for a witty and kind examination of this problem) and wasted many good lives.

But we lose other things too, and one of them is our specific sense of who we are, of place, history and belonging. And - while American egalitarianism is a lot preferable to the North Korean variety - it is still egalitarianism and it creates its own stupidities.

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Terry Courtnage - No! No! I did not intend to imply that US culture was being forced on Britain! The opposite! The British are greedy to ape the Americans and it's a one-way street.

I think it is interesting to ponder why.

American boys don't play cricket, nor do they don cricket whites. Americans don't use British products in the slavvering way that British adopt anything that comes out of the United States. They don't, other than cultish archives like Basil Fawlty, watch British TV comedies. Except for the very rare films, British films do not generate box office in the United States. I would feel safe betting that not one American out of every 10,000 knows that Gordon Brown is Britain's Prime Minister.

The traffic is all in the other direction.

Andrew Platt, who hopes I'm being ironic: No. I'm not. At the speed in which we are travelling into an unknown and possibly very perilous future, the Anglsophere needs to be bound formally together - and I would include India in this, if they would join us.

The notion that Gordon Brown would ever be chief executive of the Anglosphere is expotentially funnier than the notion that he would ever be elected Prime Minister of Britain.

The days of treaties, when our warships would steam to one another's aid are over. We live in a different, much more rapid, age and we have to make our adjustments.

I hope Verity is being ironic when she says, "it would be well if the Anglosphere were bound together by something stronger than treaties and warm familiar feelings. We may also have to act swiftly, and as one, in regard to the rise of militant Islam."

Somehow I can't quite see the Americans acting quickly on the say so of Gordon Brown. In practice what is being called for is what we already have too much of - Britain continually acting in America's perceived best interests, with no regard for herself. No thanks.

Verity seems to suggest that I said that US culture is being imposed on Britain, no - it is accepted with open arms, I find people at every level of British society think that the American way is the standard way or this is the way things are done! One finds it in banking, in business (but again, I don't want this to sound like I'm knocking the USA ; look, I'm just a regular guy.)

Either Peter Hitchens or me is out of touch with England in 2007. I think if Peter "got down with the kids" he would find that the American infuence is not as great as he thinks. It usually doesn't amount to much more than wearing a baseball cap and jeans or chinos and using the word "safe." Don't worry, Peter, we have created in the last few decades a distinctively English kind of squalor and hopelessness.

Mark Smith - I too argue for Britain to apply to join the US. Not because we're old and weak, though, but because our vigour and invention is being beaten out of us by the envious nomenklatura of the EUSSR.

I would go further and argue for a formal arrangement - i.e., nationality - among the entire Anglosphere. We must, I believe, be under one direction as China rises. I don't think China has any harmful intentions against us at all, but we cannot see into the distant future and it would be well if the Anglosphere were bound together by something stronger than treaties and warm familiar feelings. We may also have to act swiftly, and as one, in regard to the rise of militant islam.

As do the states, each entity, as in Great Britain, would continue to govern itself, without interference from DC, for domestic matters. In international matters, I suggest there may come a time when there needs to be absolute solidarity and an agreement to act quickly and in total accord. There may come a time when there is no time for lengthy negotiations between friendly nations and an executive decision has to be taken urgently.

I have only one criticism of the US and its culture. The US won its war of independence from us a long time ago. We were the parent country that had to let go. We're now old and weak and it's about time it took us in and cared for us. I'm sure Saxons and Normans didn't say, "Please may I have" either and I'll happily embrace the "Can I get". We can evolve and Britian would have a better place in the world as the 51st state of the US, nearer our new capital than the 50th state and finally removed for evermore from the EU. And no more visas to deal with on entry to the continental 48 mainland. Just what the doctor ordered.

Whilst generally agreeing with the article I found the bit about the US not having private schooling to be wrong. Due to racial divides and fear of crime many whites educate their children away from the public schools. I saw a "magnet school" in Chicago. The council decided that more black children were to be bussed into the school. The white children were promptly removed by their parents. Private schooling being much cheaper than in the UK. Solution? Education vouchers and removal of state control of education.

America has become a country dominated by corporations owned by a feudal aristocracy of wealthy barons and land gentry lords. How ironic it is that a country that fought a civil war to throw off English feudal shackles only two hundred years later introduces an even harsher form of feudalism on its own populace. It’s too bad that his majesty King George II refused to sign a charter for children's health. Under his sovereign rule the rich will keep secure from the wrath of plague and disease while the children of the lower orders will die off in order that there be fewer of their worthless ilk in the surplus population.

It ought to be highlighted just how many of our policies and ideas are imported wholesale from the US, often when they've already started to become discredited in their country of origin. Five a day fruit and veg, sure start (it's head start in the US) and many other initiatives, the list goes on and on. The problem seems to be we're stuck between the US and Brussels, with the policies and ideas coming from one and the laws and regulations coming from the other. We seem to have given up on our history and own independent thought. Although worryingly, PFI was our idea and I anticipate a catastrophe with this in the not too distant future.

Wayland - I don't know what yardstick or report you're using regarding social mobility. However, in my experience, of meeting businessmen, in the US, it often seems that they have humble origins. In contrast, in the UK it's very rare to find any business-person who is a product of the comprehensive system and under the age of forty.

Peter - I hope you do post material about your trip to North Korea. By a bizarre set of circumstances I ended up briefly trading with the DPRK some years ago. I would be very interested to read your current observations. (Very little evidence of Americanization there I suspect).

Terry Courtnadge - You think waves of
"immigrants" and "asylum seekers" pose less danger to the British sense of cohesion than the few American habits that have inevitably crept in with the advent of mass communications and the fact that we are members of the Anglosphere?

Several British folk visiting the US have mentioned that Americans have asked if they're Australian or whatever. In my experience (having lived in the US, worked there, paid taxes there) where you are from is of passing interest. If that. It's a key to open the door to tell you their family history. Everyone's family is from somewhere and they don't spare you. "Oh, you're from Britain! Well we're all British, too! I'm 1/4 Irish on my great-grandmother's side and 1/48 Scottish and my father's people, from two hundred years ago, were from England - Little Twizzleton? Are you familiar with it? We've always wanted to go back and see it! But my ancestor wasn't too popular in the village and we may not be too welcome!" Ah, the fantasies!

One point about the Americanisation of Britain: the Americans didn't demand it. The British begged for it. No one told the British they had to go to Starbucks and say, "Can I get ....?" They do it because they think it sounds really cool.

Our Brand Britain is disintegrating because we have lost our national confidence, as the socialist One Worlders intended when they opened our easily defended borders and let in hundreds of thousands people. The socialists have bullied pride in our country and our history out of us because it may upset the incomers.

Prince William, the heir to the throne, wears a baseball cap. At the same time, he thanks a waiter by saying, "Cheers, mate!"

As the Americans say, "Go figure."

But in my opinion, the US is still the most stable, most inventive and most responsible, country in today's world. Personally, I think Americanisms are, generally speaking, more sparky than Britishisms and they have legs. Perhaps that is why most of the lingo traffic is in one direction.

The United States is a vast country, and this is another woeful generalization. I'm afraid New York is the only place I've lived in the United States, and here in New York crime and homicide are not rampant, and bigotry and racism are not common. I remember one incident during my high school years when "the N word" was used in actual seriousness by a fellow white person; the rest of us were so utterly shocked that we did not know how to react and were literally speechless. We had never come across it before (except, of course, in Black culture where the word is informally and unseriously bandied about), and we all remember it to this day. I respectfully submit that when the mere usage of a derogatory racial term in seriousness is of such note that we can hardly claim that "bigotry and racism are common".

However, I can't speak for regions other than New York. I have very good friends who live just outside Detroit and from their stories it often seems like they live in another country. This is partly because of the subsidiarity inherent in the American governmental setup. Detroit is responsible for Detroit and New York is responsible for New York, whereas in Britain it seems that Whitehall is responsible for London and Whitehall is responsible for Birmingham.

And again, as for crime, I live just three or four miles from the border of the Bronx, and we rarely even lock our doors unless we're away on vacation.

I agree Stan that many British citizens are woefully ignorant, but when I visited the US many Americans didn't seem to realize that there was a world beyond the States nor care very much for that matter either. No wonder their country becomes embroiled in disastrous foreign policy debacles.

I realised years ago that losing our identity to becoming a mini version of the USA, off the north west coast of the European landmass, is far more of a threat to our unique culture than absorbing countless thousands of new arrivals from every corner of the world or by being buried in a EU superstate.
If that sounds like a hint of classic anti-Americanism, it isn't. I love the USA for a whole host of reasons, but their way of life is fine for America; I'm just looking forward to my next vacation there.

Forget the provinces' adoption of some US quirks - look at Channel Four, a station whose flagship output derives from liberal metropolitan coastal America, that realm/condition of well-appointed hyper-individualism that the chattering classes aspire to.

Britain has been being battered by forces domiciled in the US (with their forward base in the City of London) since it surrendered to the latter during WW2.

Heather Dean Caine bemoans the lack of "critical thinking and reasoning skills" among Americans and then, rather ironically, complains that health care is not "free" in the USA. Americans, apparently, are more familiar than others with the fundamental economic concept that "there is no free lunch." Health care in England is not "free," either, any more than it is "free" anywhere in the world that it is provided by anyone other than the patient or the patient's immediate family.

Which is what we are turning in to. Nobody thinking for themselves, needing to be told what to do and how to do it (Look around you and see how many needless health and safety signs and instructions there are).

The huge out of town shopping malls have come about because people want to drive everywhere, too lazy to walk to the bus stop or around the town. Even when they do venture into town they have to park right in the centre.

Regarding the "Can I get" instead of "Please may I have". Some other recent irritating imports include.
Exuberant whooping at sports events.
Saying "awesome" on very unspecial occasions or towards unremarkable objects.
The pointless use of the words "right now" at the end of sentences particularly grates and seem to be making it into daily use here.

Speaking as a British ex-pat who lives in the USA, I would like to point out that the grass is rarely greener on the other side. The USA is great to visit if you are a tourist, but it is a different matter if you live here on a permanent basis. Health care is not free, crime and homicide is rampant, bigotry and racism are common and many Americans are poorly educated and lack critical thinking and reasoning skills.

This is just a thought, it and may not be the case, but if the lads you saw playing baseball were white, could it be that they have come to see cricket as an 'Asian' game, due to the proliferation of Asian cricket clubs in that enriched area of Lancashire? Baseball in the 'movies' is always a pretty white WASP game. Maybe they identify with this more.

Some years ago, the state of New York tried to pass a highway through the quiet, sleepy hamlet my father lives in. (there is a church, so I guess it isn't technically a Hamlet). It would mean that a place where people had to pick up their mail at the post office, whose town meetings were held in a church, would soon have a Mcdonalds, strip malls, ect.
They fought it protesting at the state capital with signs that said "hamlets, not hamburgers".

My point? some 'Americanization', is and has been attacking our way of life as well.

I'm surprised that you did not ask the obvious question - is it the Americanising which erodes British culture, or is it the collapse of Britain itself which allows outside influences to overpower their way in? Nature abhors a void.

Jean Balconi points out with humour that one is unlikely to be charged and fined in the USA for the misdemeanour of being Australian. Perhaps not, but all foreign nationals are now treated like criminals as soon as they enter the country. I went to Canada for my holidays this year - unlike the USA it is a genuinely free country!

Thanks for the wonderful column - much of it rang very true to this American. The comments, too, were quite insightful.

Several comments noted that regional American speech styles sometimes differ significantly. My daughter attended a liberal arts college in Kentucky, one of the oldest colleges in the US and a very fine example of the traditional liberal arts college. She was several times complimented by native Kentuckian classmates on how well she spoke English. Somewhat disconcertingly, they also asked her what country (actually, Upper Midwest) she came from, assuming (as they later told her) that she was a foreign exchange student. One would have expected that familiarity with the mass media would have also familiarized these classmates with my daughter's very mainstream style of English, but that was not the case. On the other hand, several somewhat less insular classmates also sought my daughter out for private assurance that their accent did not sound like what they called "thick hick" - which I take to mean a hillbilly or Appalachian accent. Which says something about class in America, yet also illustrates some of the distinctive characteristics of class in America, since all my daughter's classmates came from predominantly upper middle class backgrounds.

The comments that highlighted the role of Catholic and other private educational options to the public school system in the US are also very accurate and important. In particular, Catholic schools in inner city black neighbourhoods have played an important role over the years in bringing decent education to many non-Catholics who would otherwise have been condemned to substandard inner city public schools. Many of these inner city schools are not only subsidized by the diocese at large but also have an "adoptive" relationship with wealthier suburban parishes. And as others noted, the home schooling movement, while numerically small, has become a significant factor in American education. All these options to the public schools provide an important challenge to the public school system, without which there would be little impetus for reform.

To those who agonize over the new British fascination with baseball, it may be some consolation to know that several recent studies have found a correlation between interest in baseball and high intelligence. The widespread and continuing popularity of baseball - with its very different style in comparison to American football and basketball - may also serve, in a way, as a reminder that the United States is a far more complex country than many foreigners may imagine.

The inexpensive private schools in America are religious-Roman Catholic and evangelical Christian- and they are day schools, not boarding schools. As a result, they have only local reputations and they lack prestige. Indeed, there is a bit of stigma about them, because going to them implies that you are too religious or you live in a neighbourhood too poor to have decent government schools. Indeed, though the Catholic schools in big cities now are better than the government schools, 50 years ago the opposite would have been true. (It's the Catholic schools that haven't changed.)

Thus, Mr. Hitchens's point survives: secondary schooling in America has much less effect on class than in England.

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